What matters now by Seth Godin

Seth Godin has released a new free ebook titled “What matters now” which is full of provocative thoughts. Each of its 80 pages is a complete chapter written by a respected author or a blogger. Its format makes it convinient to read pages in any order. Here are some excerpts:

Fear

Have you ever wondered who’s behind that little voice in your head that tells you, “you’re in this by yourself, one person doesn’t make a diﬀerence, so why even try?”

Dignity

Dignity is more important than wealth. It’s going to be a long, long time before we can make everyone on earth wealthy, but we can help people ﬁnd dignity this year (right now if we choose to).

Ease

We are the strivingest people who have ever lived. We are ambitious, time-starved, competitive, distracted. We move at full velocity, yet constantly fear we are not doing enough. Though we live longer than any humans before us, our lives feel shorter, restless, breathless…

Dear ones, EASE UP. Pump the brakes. Take a step back. Seriously. Take two steps back. Turn oﬀ all your electronics and surrender over all your aspirations and do absolutely nothing for a spell. I know, I know – we all need to save the world. But trust me: The world will still need saving tomorrow. In the meantime, you’re going to have a stroke soon (or cause a stroke in somebody else) if you don’t calm the hell down.

Neoteny

Neoteny is the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood. Human beings are younger longer than any other creature on earth, taking almost twenty years until we become adults. While we retain many our childlike attributes into adulthood most of us stop playing when we become adults and focus on work.

Adventure

I’ve been thinking about how big our world is and how small-minded we’ve become; how quick we are to judge and how slow to understand. Technology places the resources of the world at our ﬁngertips, yet we have trouble seeing past the ends of our noses.

Dumb

But what makes dumb, smart? The ability to look at the world through a diﬀerent lens from everyone else. To ignore rules. To disregard the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’ and ‘never-succeeded-befores’. Then you need conviction, and the ability to stand by that conviction when other (smart) people look you in the eye and say, “no way, nuh uh.”

Attention

You can buy attention (advertising). You can beg for attention from the media (public relations, Web). You can bug people one at a time to get attention (sales).

Or you can earn attention by creating something interesting and valuable and then publishing it online for free: a YouTube video, a blog, a research report, photos, a Twitter stream, an ebook, a Facebook page.

Confidence

Conﬁdence is rocket fuel for your business life. Conﬁdent people have a come-this-way charisma that generates a following. When you possess total conﬁdence you are willing to take risks. When you have it, you propel yourself and your team forward into the future.

Knowing

There is no such thing as boring knowledge. There is only boring presentation.